This premature spring could be bad news for honeybees. We heard there were more winners than losers from last year's confusing weather, including the mining bee which emerged from its burrow in garden lawns just as flowers bloomed early. But the drought-like conditions in much of the UK and a poor summer, followed by an exceptionally warm autumn did honeybees few favours. They went into winter low on food after poor honey yields.

In the south-east, the government's regional bee inspector, Alan Byham, reports that honey yields were the lowest since he began keeping records in 2004. The problem he says is that the lack of rain led to lower nectar production by many of the usual summer forage plants. As a result, bees had little to eat in the summer, so any honey they made in the spring they consumed rather than leaving it for their winter stores.

The British Beekeepers' Association annual honey survey reported a 8% decrease in the honey crop across England, Wales and Northern Ireland, with each hive producing an average 29lbs of honey in 2011 compared with 32lbs the year before. London, the north-west and north-east reported significant decreases. In the case of London, however, could this also have something to do with the rise in the number of beekeepers – more bees chasing the same flowers?

Little honey means bees will starve in the winter unless beekeepers feed them sufficient sugar water solution, or fondant, as an energy food substitute. The mild winter is also a killer because the queen bee will keep laying eggs providing ample larvae on which its deadly parasite the varroa mite feeds and reproduces. So after three years of falling honeybee losses in the UK, could we be back to beekeepers finding almost a third of their bees dead when they open their hives this spring?

In the US, where colony collapse disorder (CCD) has claimed the lives of billions of bees since 2007, scientists now blame poor nutrition, parasites and pesticides for CCD. Since none of the culprits have been dealt with, about 30% of the nation's 2.7 million honeybee colonies are still dying each year and nearly one-third of beekeepers whose bees died last winter reported opening up their hives to find them empty – a symptom of CCD" .

The good news is that the US Environmental Protection Agency is going to start analysing some of the neonicotinoid pesticides implicated in bee deaths, which could lead to their withdrawal or more tests to assess their danger to honeybee colonies at sub-lethal doses. And work is ongoing at Aberdeen University to create a self-destructing varroa mite, and parks across Britain are growing more bee-friendly trees and flowers.

Meanwhile there seems no let up in the number of people wanting to keep bees from London to New York and Melbourne. Beginners' courses are already full. And the awareness about the plight of honeybees across the globe is now extending to other important pollinators such as bumblebees and solitary bees. If we can sustain this momentum, perhaps we could move another step closer to saving the bees in 2012.

Damian Carrington: Replacing the pollination of food crops that the UK's bees perform for free would cost £1.8bn. With hard data now linking pesticides to bees' rapid decline, there is no excuse for inaction